So Mary decides to head over to the neighborhood get together and actually runs into the birthday boy himself, Max (John Redlinger really pushing the age barrier on high school senior verisimilitude) and Max’s girlfriend Tracy (Bailey Anne Borders). Being the wise newcomer that Mary is, she goes ahead and shares a joint with the two 18 year olds before heading to the party. Oh my god I hate her.
“…the suburbs are scarier in more ways than she ever remembered.”
After the basic relationships and scene are set up, our quasi-titular character, the Ice Cream Man, finally starts picking people off. THANK GOD. He moves in a very methodical, slow pace that makes you question how he ever catches up to his running victims.
The plot meanders depicting Mary’s increasingly debauched doings in the neighborhood while popping back over to see some idiot talking to the creepy ice cream man before getting a double scoop of death. We are never really given rules as to why this killer confectionary does what he does. We are never offered a moral compass from our protagonist to understand what might mean danger or safety. No the movie decides to reside in a lazy dream-like world where there are no real outcomes to anything, much less a plot to hold on to.
I wanted the story to come together. I wanted the bigger villain to be the creepy collection of characters that populate this quaint berg, greeting Mary with a cold awkwardness. The polished production values fool me and I stuck with the movie thinking there was a greater meaning and craftsmanship to what was happening. I was hoping for a greater meaning. In the end it would have been more interesting to watch ice cream melt in the summer sun than watch this flick.
The Ice Cream Truck (2017) Directed by: Megan Freels Johnston Written by: Megan Freels Johnston, Staring: Deanna Russo
The Ice Cream Truck is not worth the time (*).
* Norm’s Rating System: Full Price (****), Matinee (***), VOD (**), Don’t Bother (*)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cakTOMEPr74
Well that was fass